Day dream? Or half decent business venture?

[bofh]

I've been pondering milling for a while now, it's not often that we do tree work and hence we don't generally come across decent trunks. Having recently taken down a Cherry for a customer I'm keen to mill what I managed to save.

 

I don't currently have a yard either, so storing timber in decent amounts is not something I can do at the moment

 

So, what I'd really like to know is, is my day dream of milling/storing and selling in the future or preferably making items for sale a possible source of income? Is it viable or just another one of my good ideas that will never be

 

I've got a few people keeping their ears and eyes open for a friendly farmer in my area, someone with a plot of land/woodland I could use for storage etc. I'd like to be able to offer milling as a service and also a means of disposal for local tree surgeons rather than tipping/logging for firewood

 

What say you folks.

[Tim Stobart Tree Surgery]

You won't make a fortune, but you can make some money from it, it depends what you can do to add value to the timber, not just selling planks!

[gensetsteve]

A side line to something else that earns proper money.

[Gray git]

Spotted a bid trip point in your business plan 'friendly farmer' mythical beast that is

 

sent while pretending to do something important on my mobile.

[dervishcarving]

In any business the trick is to add value to your product. The product comes in, you add as much value as possible with the minimum expenditure of time/money and (hopefully) sell the 'upgraded' product. The difficulties lie in balancing the cost with the value added and finding sufficient market for your product.

Having said that, it sounds like a great side-line if you are already working in the industry. I have a good friend who has a wood, sells firewood and mills the larger diameter trees that we shift (windblown trees mainly) plus builds timber-framed 'things'. I would say the milling aspect is the one that does the least money but i can see a lot of potential in it. He is semi-retired though so he isn't interested in pushing too hard

[bofh]

Thanks guys, friendly farmer.... you could be right there :-)

[gobbypunk]

Hi Bofh I am just in the process of doing what you want to do a few of us managed to rent an old farm building and yard ,I do Chainsaw carving / milling and make just about anything the customer wants we also have a stained glass artist (my girlfriend) and a welder so we can do all sorts of stuff sharing the rent means we get more space cheeper so if you can find some other like minded people the skys the limit but its f*****g hard work 7 days a week since last agust but people are slowly starting to know we are there and work is coming in you are more than welcome to come and see what we have going on if you are i north dorset just ring me 07449 736569 .Good luck GO FOR IT if you dont you may well end up thinking what if and that is no way to go you cant live a life of what ifs

Cheers Mark

[bofh]

Good for you Gobbypunk :-)

[billpierce]

also i reckon look into kiln drying as this seems to double the value of boards (roughly)